An assault on the rights of San Diegans

It came as no surprise that an administrative law judge for the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) had concluded the city of San Diego’s pension reform ballot measure approved last June violated public employees’ collective bargaining rights. Thanks to appointments by Gov. Jerry Brown, PERB has gone from an obscure agency to a union front.

PERB’s argument that elected officials can’t be involved in helping to shape and to gather signatures for ballot measures is contrary to a century of direct democracy in California. This history is why City Attorney Jan Goldsmith is confident that when a real state judge – not a PERB judge – considers the case, the city will prevail. The PERB judge’s ruling is not binding.

We hope the city attorney is correct. San Diegans took an affirmative step to shore up long-term city finances when they overwhelmingly – and democratically – approved Proposition B.

As for PERB, its behavior should embarrass the governor. Consider this: The agency’s San Diego position isn’t even its craziest legal assertion. In a case involving the Los Angeles Unified School District, PERB argued that before the district began to follow a 1971 state law on teacher evaluations, it had to engage in collective bargaining with the teachers union.

This lunacy is Brown’s fault. Unless the governor agrees that collective bargaining rights trump direct democracy and existing state laws, he should force a PERB shake-up.